- Share This Post
- submit
- 2
-
Sparkle (0)
Like a music fan who pulls out favorite tunes before a big concert, I've been thinking about some of my favorite works of literary non-fiction in anticipation of our upcoming live chat with writer and teacher Helen Epstein this coming Sunday, Aug. 23, at 11 EST. I learn so much from examining the ways in which these talented writers make words sing.
A competent writer conveys information. A good writer will hold your interest long enough to get a point across. But a master of the craft can take a reader into a visceral, palpable storyworld. That mastery, combined with rigorous reporting, is the stuff of literary non-fiction.
As with all journalism, the reporting comes first. Literary journalism requires intimate knowledge, preferably gained through primary research. Think, for example, about the reporting behind this cascading lead to Epstein's exquisite 1978 profile of pianist Vladimir Horowitz for the New York Times magazine:
"Vladimir Horowitz performs no more than 20 concerts each year, only on Sunday afternoons at 4, and only in places he likes. He does not play in Denver because he finds the altitude disagreeable or in St. Louis because he thinks the acoustics of its hall compare badly with those of his bathroom. He does not play in Poughkeepsie where, "the public is not musical enough" or in Montana or Idaho, which he has no desire to see. He does not play in Europe because he dislikes flying long distances and, although he would like to visit Japan, the mere thought of getting there casts a pall over his long, extraordinary face..."
Trust me, the ride gets even better from there. You can download it from the Times website for a fee, or get the anthologized version in Epstein's collection of musician profiles, Music Talks.
I hope you noticed, by the way, that this lead is doing triple duty. First, the formality of the language sets a tone. The repetition of "only," and "He does not.." lets you know that Horowitz is a pretty demanding fellow. We know he's arrogant - not only must his audiences prove themselves worthy of coming to see them, they have to live in places that he's decided are worth visiting! However, there is a hint of vulnerability too -- the use of the word "pall" doesn't just suggest that he dislikes the idea of going to Japan; he dreads it.
[PicApp_Gallery:id=94]
That tone reflects another characteristic of literary journalism, which is its use of theme. The theme is the larger lesson that elevates the reporting. Gail Sheehy, who has spent decades writing about the stages of adult psychological development, uses that knowledge to set a theme in this 2008 profile of director and actor Clint Eastwood:
He’s sitting at home, stroking his pet rabbit. His wife is out. Hislatest picture is a wrap. He is content to have nothing to do.
“When you’re young, you’re very reckless,” says Clint Eastwood withhis usual economy of words. “Then you get conservative. Then you getreckless again.” That is, if you live long enough.
Days before, I had seen Clint’s latest film, Gran Torino,Clint Eastwood, in which he plays a bent and bitter old racist. In thefilm he lopes, with his trademark dynamic lassitude, into a hail ofbullets. He does not look like a man who pets rabbits.
The theme is how one's perspective on life changes after 70. But just as Epstein's opening passage mimicked Horowitz's imperiousness, Sheehy comes at us in a voice so plainspoken, it could belong to one of Eastwood's spaghetti-western no-name cowboys. And Sheehy, too, confounds our expectations of the man even as she reinforces the persona fans have grown to love over the decades. Eastwood, the man, has a soft heart for bunnies. Eastwood on screen "lopes...into a hail of bullets."
Students of the craft know that this style of journalism had its heyday during the 60s, although scholars such as Michael Robertson have traced the blending of fiction narrative structure with non-fiction reporting back to the work of Stephen Crane, Ernest Hemingway and Theodore Dreiser. I'd throw Richard Wright's," Joe Louis Uncovers Dynomite" into the mix - compare his use of sound in the opening line to the way he opens his novel, Native Son.
But it was during
